Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

SharkHunter wrote:You're stuck with an SD shaped "whatever" after the conversion, but if my logic is correct, the armoring problem just became moot, yes/no?

JeffEngel wrote: If you mean that you're going in through the unarmored tops and bottoms of the ship, then yes, insofar as you can access things that way, armor is out of the way. But it's still wrapping up large parts of the interior, and shaping them into specific missile launcher, CM launcher, and PDLC shaped portions for which other purposes will not have so much use.

SharkHunter wrote:Great analysis, Jeff!
--snipping--

SharkHunter wrote:You're stuck with an SD shaped "whatever" after the conversion, but if my logic is correct, the armoring problem just became moot, yes/no?

JeffEngel wrote: If you mean that you're going in through the unarmored tops and bottoms of the ship, then yes, insofar as you can access things that way, armor is out of the way. But it's still wrapping up large parts of the interior, and shaping them into specific missile launcher, CM launcher, and PDLC shaped portions for which other purposes will not have so much use.

Pretty much spot on, though mechanically I'd think those tube's interior armoring, etc. could be disconnected with the hull armor fairly readily in the Honorverse. Even if true, an SD conversion would still be stuck with some substantial limitations between the bulkheading schemes, which are also armored to keep things like battle steel or armor-fragments from chewing up the humans and blowing up systems stem to stern, etc.

I kinda like the idea of a hospital ship / tweak that could do also do prolong treatments though. RFC has effectively stated in the Pearls that the major cost for prolong isn't "per person", it's to set up the infrastructure capable of doing the treatments in the first place.

Figuring out how to "extend" that capability via a retired SD converted for medical purposes would be a boon to ANY poorer system already covered by GA SDF forces and eminently worth the conversion in it's own right.

n7axw wrote:The world goes around, I see...to my amusement. I say that because Weird Harold got into a heck of a discussion a few months back with my support over the "use the Solly SDs as hospital ships" idea. I stiil think the thought is viable, myself. But I don't think we actually managed to convince the others. But here the idea is back with a new crop of posters.

Rots of ruck, you guys!

Don

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:The world goes around, I see...to my amusement. I say that because Weird Harold got into a heck of a discussion a few months back with my support over the "use the Solly SDs as hospital ships" idea. I stiil think the thought is viable, myself. But I don't think we actually managed to convince the others. But here the idea is back with a new crop of posters.

Rots of ruck, you guys!

Don

It's important to note here that the idea is largely to use them for training by refit for new building crews. What to refit them into isn't a matter so much of what's a better result than you'd get starting from scratch, but what's a result good enough to serve as the target of the training exercise. Think of it as a high school shop class on a huge scale - you don't necessarily need the resulting shelves, tables etc. all that badly, but you get them anyway and may as well give them something to build that you can use for something.

SharkHunter wrote:My brain went "oh duh, lightbulb on, aren't we all missing a major point": given that two sides of any starship are basically or nearly unarmored because when the wedge is up, those sides are unattackable by any present technologies.

So the "wedge sides, wedge down" are likely the missile and supply loading ports, etc. etc.. So for conversion purposes, you could conceivably carve up alot of that cubage "between the sidewall and hammerhead armoring schemes" for whatever purposes you want except for anything involving battle conditions. Which means that the shape of the hull for the ship has to remain the same, i.e. there's no useful "pod layer conversion/configuration", no easy way to cut different tubes for RMN missiles, dig out the old PDLC and replace them with new ones, etc.

Granted, for most conversions we've thought of (fleet transport, etc.) pulling out all the old tubes "behind the hull line", and rerouting all the useful wiring, etc. to put something else useful inside would still be a copper or super-ceramic plated bi-otch, but "we're training workers here so that they can fix our broken warships in the future or build new ones, so what the hey?"

You're stuck with an SD shaped "whatever" after the conversion, but if my logic is correct, the armoring problem just became moot, yes/no?

Jonathan_S wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:My brain went "oh duh, lightbulb on, aren't we all missing a major point": given that two sides of any starship are basically or nearly unarmored because when the wedge is up, those sides are unattackable by any present technologies.

So the "wedge sides, wedge down" are likely the missile and supply loading ports, etc. etc.. So for conversion purposes, you could conceivably carve up alot of that cubage "between the sidewall and hammerhead armoring schemes" for whatever purposes you want except for anything involving battle conditions. Which means that the shape of the hull for the ship has to remain the same, i.e. there's no useful "pod layer conversion/configuration", no easy way to cut different tubes for RMN missiles, dig out the old PDLC and replace them with new ones, etc.

Granted, for most conversions we've thought of (fleet transport, etc.) pulling out all the old tubes "behind the hull line", and rerouting all the useful wiring, etc. to put something else useful inside would still be a copper or super-ceramic plated bi-otch, but "we're training workers here so that they can fix our broken warships in the future or build new ones, so what the hey?"

You're stuck with an SD shaped "whatever" after the conversion, but if my logic is correct, the armoring problem just became moot, yes/no?

Less armored (on something like an SD), not unarmored. Plus SDs have a core hull that sound like it wraps all the way round) which makes some sense since shots that are high (or low) on the broadside would hit the top of the core hull armor.

Plus SDs don't just have armor on the hull and core hull. Quite a lot of the internal bulkheads are also armor to direct and contain penetrating damage. So it doesn't have a soft neugat center once you get past the hard outer shell. It's riddled with toothbreaking hard bits all the way through.

That's not so say refits are impossible. Just that they're enough work; even trying to burrow in from the dorsal and/or ventral surfaces that many aren't worth the time and resources they'd take.

John Prigent wrote:There's been a lot of speculation about converting SLN SDs to other purposes, and a lot of comment about how hard it is to cut through SD-size armour. But do we actually know how Solarian League SDs are armoured? Is the armour 'grown' in place like Manty armour, or is it in welded-on sections that might be less difficult to remove?
Cheers
JOhn

warspite1515 wrote:Still like the idea of the hospital ship ... if nothing else it's a way to use the ships "as is" and any modifications are within the existing armor structure of the ship.

There's just GOT to be a way to use these damn things without turning them into slag -- or really large target drones.